Pyrenees pipeline veto is setback for gas

The global gas industry’s prospects will suffer from the Pyrenees pipeline veto imposed by regulators, say opponents of fossil fuels.

LONDON, 30 January, 2019 − The Pyrenees pipeline veto announced by regulators in France and Spain, rejecting plans to complete a €3 billion (£2.6 bn) gas link between both countries, is being hailed as a major victory by climate change protestors.

The pipeline, which would have doubled the capacity for transporting natural gas through the mountains on the Franco-Spanish border, was supported by the European Union as a way to reduce its reliance on Russian gas, but the project now appears doomed.

Campaigners in both countries said it was a defeat for the fossil fuel industry and a major step in preventing the EU from continuing to rely on gas instead of renewables.

“MidCat”, as the proposed Midi-Catalunya pipeline was known, would have allowed the flow of gas in both directions across the Pyrenees. Significantly, it would have allowed liquefied gas from terminals in Spain to be pumped north to France to replace an estimated 10% of the gas coming south from Russia.

Energy corporations Enagás and Teréga have been promoting its construction since 2005, and in 2013 the European Commission added the project to its list of favoured “Projects of Common Interest”.

“The gas industry should realise that the party is over and that we can’t keep sinking taxpayer billions into more fossil fuels”

The companies presented the pipeline as a necessary piece of infrastructure to improve Europe’s energy security and to fight against climate change, but protestors said the money should instead have been invested in renewables.

Although it was only one of 90 projects designed to improve the transport of gas in the EU, it was one of the largest. Gas companies have lobbied hard everywhere in Europe to get the Commission and politicians to see gas as an interim step between coal and renewables, but campaigners say the climate cannot afford to burn gas either.

Clemence Dubois, a campaigner at 350.org, said: “All across Europe, we are building a future free of fossil fuels. Together we are making it harder and harder for dirty energy companies to build their pipelines and impose a destructive and outdated model of business.

“We have won an important victory because we have prevented the construction of a major piece of infrastructure that is totally incompatible with a liveable climate.”

Last week the French Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE) and the Spanish National Commission on Markets and Competition (CNMC) issued a joint statement rejecting the scheme, not on climate grounds but because they said it was too costly and they could not see a sufficient need for it.

Red card

Antoine Simon, fossil free campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe, said: “This dramatic red card to the MidCat gas pipeline marks a major victory in the fight to stop a new climate-wrecking fossil gas project. Activists, NGOs and local communities have been fighting this useless project for years, knowing it’s bad for taxpayers, consumers, local people, and the climate – and today they’ve been proved right.

“This is a major setback for the gas industry, and calls into question the hundred other gas projects that the EU has prioritised for support, all of which are similarly unviable. Gas is a dangerous fossil fuel which is killing the climate.

“The gas industry should realise that the party is over and that we can’t keep sinking taxpayer billions into more fossil fuels.”

Although there has been fierce opposition from environment groups in the region, the pipeline’s future was in doubt from the moment the Spanish Conservative government lost power in June last year and socialists took over the environment ministry.

When last November Spain pledged to switch to 100% renewable electricity by 2050 and to become carbon-neutral soon afterwards, it was clear that the new pipeline was unlikely to find favour. − Climate News Network